MetroFocus Full Episode: Public Housing After Sandy, Children’s Mental Health, Museum of Mathematics

May 01, 2013 at 3:16 pm

MetroFocus airs May 1 at 7:30 p.m. on WLIW21, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. on THIRTEEN, and May 2 at 10:30 p.m. on NJTV.

In this edition of MetroFocus we report from New Jersey and New York on what’s ahead for the region six months after Sandy.

NJ Today’s Lauren Wanko reports from Ortley Beach in Ocean County, NJ where business owners and residents are still struggling to repair and reopen as summer approaches. In New York City, the focus is on public housing. We take a look back with an excerpt from a story reported by Jon Gerber and Kristen Reed last November. Two Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism students take us inside the Smith Houses on the Lower East Side when the lights were still out. Host Rafael Pi Roman follows up with an interview with New York City Housing Authority General Manager Cecil House about what’s ahead for the agency and its tenants, and lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy.

Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the Child Mind Institute talks to Pi Roman about a new project to make mental health care for children a higher priority and about how to respond to children’s questions about the Boston marathon bombings.

The New York Executive Director of the Nature Conservancy Bill Ulfelder joins Pi Roman to talk about “LEAF”, a growing program that takes urban students to the wilderness and helps them become environmental leaders.

Funders

MetroFocus is made possible by James and Merryl Tisch, the Anderson Family Fund, Judy and Josh Weston, Bernard and Irene Schwartz, the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Anti-Semitism, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, the Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, The Dorothy Schiff Endowment for News and Public Affairs Programming, Jody and John Arnhold, Rosalind P. Walter, Ellen and James S. Marcus, the Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, Laura and Jim Ross.